


Inlustrem

by SkylandMountain1013



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, MSR, Season/Series 07, XF Writing Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkylandMountain1013/pseuds/SkylandMountain1013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written for the tumblr XFWritingChallenge prompt "Hello"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inlustrem

He’s leaning lazily against the car, hands stuffed in his pockets. He counts stars as he waits for Scully to join him. 

Normally, he’d have no qualms about joining her upstairs– it’s been a part of their routine for years now. He’d lie on her couch (”Mulder. Shoes.  _Please?_ ”), and pretend to page through an issue of  _Modern Pathology_ while she hastily packed a suitcase for whatever destination was on their docket next. 

There is no destination tonight though, and something about that makes him choose to wait outside. 

He’s found himself smiling more over the past few weeks. Their orbits have always been intertwined, ebbing and flowing as easily as the tides. But something in the universe has shifted slightly, just enough to finally shift them completely in sync. 

It’s not long before she walks through the door of her building and down the stairs towards him. She’s talking before she stops moving. 

“Sorry. My lock has been giving me problems for weeks and I just haven’t had time to call the landlord. Took me three times to-”

He quiets her with a brush of his lips and a hand on her shoulder. “Hi,” he breathes. “It’s just me.”

He can feel her relax a bit underneath his touch. She huffs a nervous laugh and toes a rock with her foot. 

“You have to admit this is a little weird, Mulder. What are we doing here?”

He knows she’s speaking in generalities. He, however, chooses to stay in the moment. “We,” and he emphasizes the word we, “are going to enjoy a Friday night. Like normal people.”

“Normal people?”

He shrugs. “I’m going to make it up as I go along.”

Thirty minutes later they find themselves at the edge of the Tidal Basin (his choice) with two slices of greasy pizza from a hole in the wall diner three blocks over (surprisingly her choice). The paths are still buzzing with the chatter of curious tourists with flashes from cameras peppering their peripheral vision. 

“Venus is supposed to be visible tonight,” he says, settling back against a tree. 

She sits next to him, using her jacket to protect her from the dewy grass beneath her legs. “There’s far too much light pollution out here. Hate to break it to you, but I don’t think we’re going to see much of anything.”

“Brightest it’s been in 20 years, Scully. i think we have a shot. Besides, I didn’t think I’d get you to agree to join me in an abandoned field.”

She gives him a side eyed look and breaks a piece of crust off of his slice of pizza. “Now that would be more apropos of our kind of Friday night.”

They sit in comfortable silence as they finish their meal. Scully uses a cool breeze as an excuse to shift over between his legs, back nestled up against his chest. His arms lock around her instinctively. 

Her whole body reverberates with the timbre of his voice when he starts to talk again. “I’ve spent so much time worried about what’s up there, what’s coming for us and what the government knows.. Sometimes I forget the pure wonderment of stars.”

She nods. “My father used to take Bill and I out to the edge of the base on summer nights to point out constellations. Bill would get bored and start throwing rocks over the fence, but I was so fascinated by what I was seeing. Ursa Minor, Orion, Sagittarius..”

His fingers start to roam over her arms, her back, her legs, tracing the constellations she’s naming. He’s sure he hears her body humming in response. 

“I think I see it,” she says. She shifts in his arms to face him, so she can point out where to look. 

For once, he is not looking skyward. 

He runs his hands through her hair and moves within an inch of her lips. 

“Brightest light in the sky,” he whispers with a smile. 


End file.
